France Telecom, SFR to deploy FTTH in Paris suburbs

France Telecom and SFR have jointly signed a new agreement with France's central government and Ile-de-France region to bring fiber to the home to major Paris suburbs by the year 2020.

This deployment includes six Ile-de-France counties: Essonne, Seine et Marne, Seine-Saint Denis, Val de Marne, Val d'Oise and Yvelines. However, the city of Paris is not included in its deployment target.

Ultimately, France Telecom and SFR said they will provide FTTH services to 89 percent of households in the Ile counties, delivering services to 4.7 million homes in densely populated areas.

In less populated areas, the two service providers will bring FTTH to 198 and 122 towns, respectively, through funding from the state and regional governments via France's €150 million ($196.1 million) Fibre Plan. These networks are being built in an open access architecture that will enable other competitive ISPs to rent facilities to deliver services to customers.

Each provider will make their own individual complementary investments.

Although France Telecom and SFR did not disclose how much they would spend on their FTTH network buildouts, they did say that the regional agreement "opens the way for the carriers to accelerate the signing of fibre projects with individual counties."

To accelerate the fiber-based network rollout, local town officials will assist service providers to educate landlords about deploying fiber in their buildings.

Besides SFR, France Telecom has signed similar FTTH deals with Bouygues and Free. These agreements are part of the service provider's aggressive FTTH program to bring fiber to 3,600 municipalities by 2015, providing service to 10 million households by 2015 and 15 million by 2020.